Around the world, 122 journalists were in prison at the end of 2004 for practicing their profession, 16 fewer than the year before. International advocacy campaigns, including those waged by the Committee to Protect Journalists, helped win the early release of a number of imprisoned journalists, notably six independent writers and reporters in Cuba.

The Asian economic turmoil of the last eight months struck many international observers as a sudden calamity--trouble that seemed to drop from the sky like an alien invader. But in fact, the signs of structural weakness and the cracks in the veneer of financial robustness were in plain view for those in a position to take a hard look. In Indonesia, the family of President Suharto has had its hands in the economy for decades. Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has long pursued expensive vanity projects. In South Korea and Thailand, many companies and banks have ignored financial reporting requirements with scant legal penalty.

The publication in March of CPJ's Attacks on the Press in 1996
was the culmination of months of intense preparation by CPJ staff,
investigating and verifying more than 1,000 documented cases of
violations of press freedom worldwide. The 376-page volume, edited by Publications Director Alice Chasan,
is the longest and most comprehensive of CPJ's annual studies to date,
with overviews of five world regions and assessments of more than 100
countries. Eight special reports illuminate subjects as diverse as the
CIA's new legal right to use U.S. journalists in covert operations, the
role of Ireland's arcane libel laws in reporter Veronica Guerin's
death, the restrictions on Vietnam's independent press, and the dangers
that Russian journalists face.